- Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 Mobile Platform
- AMD Launches Ryzen PRO 7000 Series Mobile & Desktop Platform
- Intel Launches Sleek Single-Slot Arc Pro A60 Workstation Graphics Card
- NVIDIA Announces Latest Ada Lovelace Additions: GeForce RTX 4060 Ti & RTX 4060
- Maxon Redshift With AMD Radeon GPU Rendering Support Now Available
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Dell Launches “Yours Is Here”, New Monitors
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Dell today has launched a new campaign called “Yours Is Here”, which caters to those who enjoy customizing their notebooks and other digital gadgets. If you visit the main website, you will see a banner showcasing numerous colors that Inspiron notebooks will be available in, including Sunshine Yellow and Flamingo Pink. Yeah. Flamingo Pink. For whatever reason, I cannot seem to customize a notebook on their site without error, so I’m not sure how the process goes.
Also released today are a few Inspiron desktop systems, an XPS M1330 which is the ‘worlds thinnest’ 13-inch notebook and also two monitors. The SE198WFP 19-inch monitor has a 1000:1 contrast ratio and a 1440×900 resolution. The 2407WFP-HC is similar to the non-HC edition, with the 1920×1200 resolution and 1000:1 contrast ratio. What’s new is the fact that it has a better color gamut, like the recently released 3007WFP-HC and 2707WFP.
NEW YORK, June 26, 2007 – Users looking for “haute couture” in a “hot computer” need search no further. Dell hit the runway today with notebooks cloaked in Sunshine Yellow and Flamingo Pink, and classic desktops accessorized with clean and crisp widescreen displays, all ready to be custom-tailored to meet user’s specific needs.
Source: Dell Press Release
Apple and AT&T Announce iPhone Plans
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You are sick of iPhone news, I know and understand. It’s seems like lately it’s been the only thing to read about, but all of the rage should die down a little bit next week, since release is this Friday. That aside, Apple has finally announced the AT&T plans for the phone, which start off at $59.99.
For the rock-bottom plan, you receive 450 minutes, unlimited data, voicemail, 200 text messages, roll-over minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling. You can bump yourself up to 900 minutes for $79.99 per month and 1,350 for $99.99. Prices for Canadians with the Rogers service have not been announced yet, but should be made available soon.
ATLANTA and CUPERTINO, Calif., June 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — AT&T Inc.
and Apple(R) today announced three simple, affordable service plans for
iPhone(TM) which start at just $59.99 per month. All three plans include
unlimited data, Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll-over minutes and
unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling. With everything else already included,
iPhone customers can easily choose the plan that’s right for them based on the
amount of voice minutes they plan to use each month. In addition, iPhone
customers can choose from any of AT&T’s standard service plans.
Source: Apple Press Release
NVIDIA Working On Energy-Efficient SLI
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X-Bit Labs are reporting that NVIDIA is conjuring up an energy-efficient SLI Hybrid technology. It’s designed to cut power consumption and improve performance. It all has to do with power saving schemes mainly, disabling of cores when they are not being used, eg, when you are not playing a game that requires both. In an age where our power bills cost as much as car payments, anything energy efficient is welcomed.
Nvidia’s new Hybrid SLI technology will have two modes and that will target different applications: the Power Saving Mode, which will switch off discrete graphics core and use only integrated graphics engine when high performance is not needed, whereas Max Performance Mode will make integrated graphics processor (IGP) to assist discrete graphics processing unit (GPU) and boost performance when it is required.
Source: X-Bit Labs
Apple and AT&T Announce iTunes Activation and Sync for iPhone
CUPERTINO, Calif. and ATLANTA, June 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R)
and AT&T Inc. today announced that iPhone(TM) users will be able to activate
their new iPhones using Apple’s popular iTunes(R) software running on a PC or
Mac(R) computer in the comfort and privacy of their own home or office,
without having to wait in a store while their phone is activated. Activating
iPhone takes only minutes as iTunes guides the user through simple steps to
choose their service plan, authorize their credit and activate their iPhone.
Source: Apple Press Release
Is the CD Becoming Obsolete?
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I purchase two or three music CDs each month and hate the thought of dwindling sales. There have been times when I’ve walked into a music store recently and dropped my jaw because they actually carried an artist I wasn’t expecting them to. By the way things are going though, that won’t happen for much longer, as music stores have to optimize their products for sale in order to cater to the bubble-gum crowd. I can see why online sales are so popular, but doesn’t anyone like owning a hard copy of their music anymore?
Glancing at a report on Forbes.com this morning, there was an article showing that CD sales are expected to be down 20% 2008 (slightly higher than the 15% drop initially predicted). Why such a drop? Well, there has been a recorded drop of 18% so far in 2007 and the trend seems to be steady and indicative of future trending.
Source: Audioholics Via: Slashdot
TorrentSpy Begins Weeding Copyright Content
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We’ve posted a few times in the past couple of weeks about the pressure being put on TorrentSpy to begin tracking their users information. Well, it looks like their workaround is going to be banning the ‘banned’ files from being uploaded in the first place. It also appears traces of copyrighted content have already been removed from the site. Of course this doesn’t mean the end of TorrentSpy, but it probably means that other torrent sites will become even larger.
It should be noted that illegal file doesn’t occur at TorrentSpy or the other torrent engines. People use these sites to locate torrent files that can be downloaded via the file-sharing program BitTorrent. In the lawsuit filed by the film industry in Feb. 2006, TorrentSpy is accused of being a powerful tool for those who pirate intellectual property.
Source: News.com
Do-It-Yourself 8-Bit Console
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How many times have you played your NES and screamed out that you wanted to make your very own 8-bit console? Well, here’s your chance to buy and build your very own, with similar joystick ports of the original Nintendo. This kit comes with it’s own 128K re-writeable cartridge, keyboard, mouse and NES-like gamepad. It’s just too bad you can’t write your own games and then share them, unless a friend has the same kit. Who cares though? This is just too cool.
The Hydra 8-bit console kit has more juice than an NES, and you can write your own games for it. $200 gets you instructions on how to program for the Propeller processor, a keyboard, mouse, NES-ish joypad, and a 128KB rewritable cartridge to match its 128K EEPROM.
Source: Gizmodo
The Time To Buy DDR2 Is Now?
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OCZ CEO Ryan Peterson has a new blog over at DailyTech, and for his first entry he discusses the basics of the DRAM market and how pricing works. He mentions that production overseas has been reduced, and as a result we’ve seen prices increase over the past few weeks by 25%. DDR2 is still priced well right now, but he believes it will continue to rise, especially closer to the Intel price cuts next month.
The great debate among modules houses these days is whether Powerchip is holding inventory, swapping fab capacity to higher density parts or implementing previously scheduled new die shrinks. If there are indeed swapping capacity then in the short term we will see a continuation of price increases, which will soon be passed on to consumers.
Source: DailyTech
Xbox 360 HD DVD Add-on Sells 155,000 Units in U.S.
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Things are not looking so bad for HD-DVD, despite recent reports of Blockbuster going pro-Blu-ray. To date, 155,000 HD-DVD add-ons have been sold for the Xbox 360 in the US, effectively making it the best selling accessory for the console. I assume that excludes controllers.
As high as 155,000 is, compare that to the Playstation 3 which reportedly has sold over 1.3 million units in the US. Going by those numbers, for each HD-DVD add-on owner, there are eight Playstation 3 owners. However, not everyone who owns a PS3 wants to play movies, while every single person who bought the HD-DVD add-on has those intentions.
A Microsoft representative told CNET UK that 155,000 Xbox 360 HD DVD add-ons have been sold in the U.S., making it the “biggest-selling accessory” ever sold for the console. By “biggest-selling,” Microsoft may be referring to the overall revenue, as it would seem unlikely that the HD DVD add-on would be more popular than extra controllers. Each HD DVD drive retails for around $200.
Source: DailyTech
Episodic Gaming – Yay Or Nay?
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As confusing as it might be, Bit-Tech says both Yay and Nay. When most people think of episodic gaming, there is only one game that comes into mind, but in reality, there are quite a few on the market. Some are done better than others, but most are ignored because they are not developed by big-name developers. It’s a shame since some of these games are quite good, especially Sam & Max, from what I hear.
Regardless of all that, this editorial takes a look at the state of things, and recommends what should be changed. Adventure games should be episodic, not FPS, Joe Martin believes. That point I can almost agree with, as the delays for HL2: Episode 2 have been difficult. I still have a sore spot from SiN: Episodes being cancelled.. what a waste of time that was! Good read overall.
I often compare myself to an abused housewife in this regard (not that the experiences are at all similar, I just have a crappy imagination); I know I’m being abused by developers and publishers, but I just can’t bring myself to leave them because, somewhere deep down, I still love them.
Source: Bit-Tech
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Performance Preview
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It’s been known for a while that Intel was planning to release updated C2D processors with a 1333FSB, and that is finally becoming a reality sometime this summer. We’ve posted a performance preview of the E6750 chip which clocks in at 2.66GHz to show you what to expect. While the stock speed won’t impress big overclockers, maybe the 3.44GHz overclock on stock voltages will!
For the non-overclockers, you will still have the benefit of faster than E6700 speeds and also the ability to run 1:1 ratio with your DDR3-1333 memory, should you decide to buy some. If DDR3 prices don’t go down by the time these new processors launch though, it might be one of the rare times where the ram costs twice as much as the CPU.
Shadowrun Cracked To Work On Windows XP
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If there is one thing that rubs me the wrong way, it’s when developers deliberately develop a game so that it will only work if you have a certain version of Windows, even though it would work fine and dandy on another. Take the case of Shadowrun, a game designed and developed for Windows Vista.
Warez group Razor1911 has successfully cracked the game to run under Windows XP, without the need of DirectX 10. I stand by the fact that people wouldn’t mind upgrading to Vista if there was a good reason. Right now there are more downsides than upsides, and it’s too bad that most will miss these great games because of it.
The information text file that ships with the crack states: “Tired of waiting for Falling Leaf to produce drivers so that you can playShadowrun in XP? The wait is over, because Razor1911 already has the remedy! Yes, you read right. This game will also function in Windows XP”.
Source: The Inquirer
YouTube To Revenue-Share With 20-Year-Old
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Good things come to those who work hard, so they say. Brandon Fletcher took a trip to San Bruno, California, from his New York home, only to be shunned away by a security guard. When all said and done, he launched his reality show and afterwards, YouTube agreed to revenue share. It doesn’t seem at this point in time that YouTube is ready to make revenue-sharing a publicly available option. For those wanting to earn money this way as well, hopefully the wait will not be too long.
This week it was revealed that YouTube had given Brandon a revenue-sharing deal. YouTube’s CEO said in January that they’d originally wanted their users to be motivated by a love of videos — and not money. But they’d since come to realize that they’d get some better videos from their users if they let them share some of YouTube’s advertising revenues.
Source: Tech.Blorge
Vista: The Most Secure OS
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What’s that sound? Could it be laughter? Perhaps, as the title caught me by surprise as well. This report was compiled by a Microsoft employee, but all of the information is based off of publicly available information. If there is anything I garnered from the report, it’s that Red Hat has a -lot- of vulnerabilities, no doubt thanks to its wide server usage.
While it might be easy to dismiss a report from any OS company that puts its own product in the most favorable light as being biased, it is important to remember that the data source from which Jones has made his graphs is based on publicly-available information from the National Institute of Standards (NIST), which keeps track of software vulnerabilities in the National Vulnerability Database.
Source: Ars Technica
iPhone Stress Testing
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Yes, it’s more iPhone news! No doubt you are getting annoyed by the amount of related news appearing on the site, but it -is- news and if I didn’t post it, I would not be fulfilling my journalistic duties. Now that I have got that rant out of the way, if you are interested in knowing how well the iPhone handles a good ole stress testing, you have nothing to worry about.
Users worried about durability can rest easier that testing included dousing the iPhone in water, dropping it onto concrete and bouncing it off sidewalks. Real life usage testing was also a big focus: “Many people don’t realize it, but walking gives you the worst channel conditions,” Thandu says. Cell signals tend to bounce off buildings, causing interference, and background noise is a constant problem in cities.
Source: MacRumors
The Ten Most Common Photographic Mistakes
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The author calls this a “quick rundown”, but it’s actually quite useful. If you are like me and make constant photography mistakes, this article will help you out a lot. I think the most important thing to realize is that patience is not an option, it’s a requirement.
Here is a quick rundown of the most common mistakes people (like me) make that mess up a good photo or prevent us from taking a good photo. It is a big leap for me to start talking about taking photos, since it is so much more subjective than writing Photoshop Tutorials. I am on a journey and often times I look at older pictures on this site and wonder why I even took the photo (at least I have some negative examples to show you). I am taking the easy way out, starting with things that can go wrong, to kick off this series on photography techniques.
Source: Andre Gunther Photography
ISP Inserting Ads Into Websites
This is unbelievable. An ISP in Texas is running software that will insert their own ads into websites, even websites that don’t have ads! For sites that do have ads, it replaces some of them. Essentially to site owners, this means that this ISP is making money off your site, and you are essentially losing money since your ads are replaced.
Texas based ISP Redmoon has implemented software that hijacks pages being visited by their customers by placing Redmoon’s own ads on these pages. The technology is provided by NebuAD, which boasts that ISP delivered advertisements are an untapped source of revenue.
Source: TechCrunch
WoW Database Site Sells For $1 Million
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I think I am in the wrong business! Popular WoW database site, Wowhead, sold to ZAM for a cool $1 million. Apparently, ZAM also owns Thottbot and Allakhazam, and recently sold IGE which is why the owners of Wowhead thought it was right to sell the site to them. I have a good feeling that ONE MILLION dollars had a lot more to do with it.
ZAM is the owner of several other WoW databases, including Thottbot and Allakhazam. Until recently Affinity was also the owner of IGE, a highly controversial company that sold in-game wealth for real life money. Affinity recently sold IGE, which Wowhead claims as the reason they allowed the sale to go through.
Source: Slashdot
12 of the Best Music Social Networks
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If you are a fan of music, and who isn’t, then you will be happy to know that Mashable has thrown together a top twelve of the best social networking music sites. I admit, I am a big Last.fm fan and didn’t even realize it had so much competition. I will definitely be checking some of these out.
Internet radio may be facing uncertain times, but many musical social networks continue to thrive. If you’re in a band, these sites are essential for promoting your music: take note, and sign up for as many as possible to maximize your reach.
Source: Mashable
Apple Becomes #3 Music Provider In US
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Apple must be all smiles lately, because lately it seems they can do no wrong. They have people hyped up for the iPhone and Leopard, did well did the Safari for Windows launch, and now they have become the #3 seller of music in the US. Now, as impressive as this, I think I am more surprised by the fact that the #1 is Wal-Mart. Regardless, in the process of hitting #3, Apple effectively surpassed Amazon, by a healthy margin.
This isn’t the biggest of surprises, since Steve himself predicted that the iTunes Store would overtake Amazon at the Showtime event back in September, but the leap to #3 is a little unexpected, since Apple also outpaced Target last quarter.
Source: Engadget
Microsoft Silverlight Coming To Linux… Finally
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GNOME founder Miguel de Icaza has posted in his blog that a Microsoft Silverlight plugin for Linux browsers is coming soon. His team had a stretch of twenty one days where they worked twelve to sixteen hours per day to get this far. There is no packaged binary yet, but it should only be another week before we see one. I have yet to play around with any Silverlight content, even in Windows, so I am looking forward to finally seeing this plugin. Kudos to Miguel and his team for their efforts!
At this point we do not have a packaged release of Silverlight for Linux and we still have to sort out a few things that would have to be done in order to ship a ready-to-use plugin. But if you are curious or want to contribute to the effort check our page for information on downloading, compiling and getting started with the project.
Source: Download Squad
Top 10 DIY office projects
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It’s the weekend, and your bored. I know the feeling. If you are tired of sitting around reading iPhone stories, Lifehacker is going to put you to work with the help of their top ten DIY office projects. Included is a wine cork laptop stand, letter tray network rack, under-desk power strip, PVC monitor riser and a unique cable catcher.
Anyone can drop cash on spendy office gear, but it takes a little ingenuity to rig up your workspace just right with stuff you’ve already got around the house. Today’s top 10 looks at a few dead easy do-it-yourself office projects that reduce clutter and organize the cables, gadgets and office supplies in your workspace.
Source: Lifehacker
Should You Purposely Avoid The iPhone?
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AT&T are bastards, there is not much of an argument there. But, they are the absolutely only place to pick up an iPhone when they go on sale next Friday. What to do? Ignore the fact that the company cares nothing for your privacy, or stick to your morals and begrudgingly refuse to pick up the hot new device. That’s a tough one, but if you need more convincing, Gizmodo is here to the rescue and they just might save you $599.
Apple and iPhone fans, what’s more important to you? Having the hottest device, or knowing that you are standing up to a company, that in my opinion, has no regard for the privacy and consumer choice of Americans? Is it up to us, the customers, to stand up to these practices, or should we just keep shopping and hope the regulators do their jobs?
Source: Gizmodo
HD-DVD Not Going To Die, Says Universal
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Earlier this week, we reported that Blockbuster decided to cut off Blu-rays life supply in their retail outlets. They would however continue to offer titles through their online service. This news sparked a monumental amount of attention from consumers around the web, most of who had cried in fear for a potential HD-DVD death.
Well it turns out that HD-DVD is not going to suffer that much at all, at least according to Universal. They state that Blockbusters sales/rentals of their HD-DVD movies accounted for less than 1% of their profits. This might go to show that despite Blockbuster’s hold on the rental market, they won’t have an effect in the grand scheme of things. HD-DVD fans should have nothing to fear, unless another e-tailer wants to jump on the same bandwagon.
What Ken really said would win the format war was price, with HD DVD’s lower production costs giving it an advantage here over Blu-ray. When asked about when we would see a £100 HD DVD player, Toshiba’s Olivier Van Wynendaele, said it was unlikely to be this year, but that we could soon expect for see decks from Chinese manufactures that would undercut its own entry-level HD-E1 deck, which can currently be picked up for around £260.
Source: Trusted Reviews
Electronics Retailers Owned By Burglars
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Here’s a Mission Impossible story for you. A crew of clever burglars broke into Best Buy, stole an intense amount of products and left without leaving a single piece of evidence. They left with laptops, plasma TV’s and even Best Buy’s store safe! Though a serious matter, it’s really hard to feel sorry for a company that blatantly deceives their customers. Payback at it’s finest. Kind of.
These high-tech robbers have also tunneled into jewelry stores and stolen 5000 pound safes according to Police. Apparently they have all the merchandise already sold so that they can just get rid of it extremely quickly. Not a single item has been recovered to this day and if they keep up at this rate, it looks like a lot more gadgets will end up missing from store shelves.
Source: CrunchGear